Fran Tiller is now a secretary studying to become a nutritional medicine practitioner. In the late 80s and early 90s she was one of
at least seven people employed by two private investigation firms (who were in turn employed by McDonald's) to infiltrate the activist group
London Greenpeace. The information the spies gave to the corporation led to the serving of libel writs on 5 members of the group, which led
to the McLibel Trial.

How did you become a spy for McDonald's? What was your role in the London Greenpeace meetings in the '80s?

I'd been made redundant from a job that I
liked very much - working for a
newspaper - and I was looking for another job that was sort of
difference and excitement. I got a job working for the
managing director of an investigation agency, as his personal
assistant. It was a very small firm, and this job
came up with McDonald's, and he didn't really have enough
investigators, I think, so he asked me if I would fulfil that
role as well.

So I said yes and I went along to some
of their meetings, just as a sort of prospective member,
somebody interested, and sat in, and my job, my role was
actually to notice everything that was happening - where it
was being held, describe the place that it was being
held in, the people who were there, what they were wearing,
what their names were, and everything that was said, and in
particular everything that was said in relation to McDonald's.
And when I left each time that I attended a meeting I would
jot down very quickly as best I could remember, everything
that took place. Make out a report, give it to the managing
director of the investigation agency and from that he would
make up a report which he would send to McDonald's, who was
the client.

Just go along, attend
the meeting, notice as much as you can, write it all down
afterwards and take a special note of anything
mentioned in relation to McDonald's.

Was it hard to pretend to be someone you're not?

It was very, very hard. Yes. It's very difficult to explain actually. You go in there and you're playing a
role, you're trying to be very natural and talk to people and
not blow your cover, so to speak. At the same time you're
trying to notice everything that's happening, and in fact I
came away after every meeting with a chronic headache because
I was concentrating so much trying to remember
everything that was said, by whom, and how many shelves
were behind me and what leaflets they had on the shelves,
and so on. How many drawers in the filing cabinet and
who came in, at what time and that sort of thing. So it
was very trying.

Could you describe the place where the London Greenpeace meetings were held?

Well initially it was up a narrow staircase into a
tiny room full of, well I
say full of bodies, there weren't very many people there,
probably half a dozen on the first time that I went there.
The impression was that there were a lot because it was such
a small cramped space. There were shelves floor to
ceiling in one corner of the room, which were pretty full of
leaflets and things, some of which I was asked by the agency (if
they related to McDonald's) to take copies of. On one side
of the room there was a very rickety table which at one time
absolutely collapsed with everything on top of it fell in a heap on the floor.

How were the meetings conducted by the activists?

Initially I was a bit sceptical because I'd been told they were
all vegans and at the time I didn't know what veganism
entailed, I didn't know anything about it. As it happens now
I'm on a totally vegan diet myself. But, I expected them
all to be bloodless creatures (laughs) - no personality.
They were all pretty ordinary people. One may say maybe
tending to fringe - the way they were dressed made you
think that they were perhaps of the fringe society. I
don't know if that's a good description. I didn't get a chance to talk to them all
to find out what sort of jobs they were doing. Some were
working, some maybe weren't working. But they were all very
enthused about what they were doing.

The
meetings were conducted in a very informal way. There was
no official chairman or secretary. There wasn't any clear
understanding of when the meeting actually began, it just
sort of started because people started talking to each other.
Somebody perhaps said "does anybody want to take the
the minutes?", and somebody else'd reluctantly say "oh I
will" and they took the book and they just wrote down roughly
what entailed. Quite a few letters were received, I
believe, by the group from other organisations, world-wide
probably, and read out, by not necessarily one person, by
different people. Whoever felt like doing something just did
it. There were no allocations of jobs or anything like
that.

On reflection I
suppose if I knew then what I know now I would, I may well have
declined to do the job.

How important was the Anti-McDonald's campaign to the group at the time?

My impression was - when I was attending the
meetings - that it had been maybe an
important issue in the past but it didn't figure very
highly, it came quite low down on the agenda. Maybe point
six or seven or something like that, and that probably only
because they were organising the fair.... In fact. I've got a feeling that McDonald's wasn't figuring
too much even in the fair. It was just still hanging
around but they weren't actually taking much action against
McDonald's at that particular time.

Was the Factsheet in evidence much when you attended the meetings?

They showed me a leaflet in court which was supposed
to have been the leaflet
under issue in this whole trial, and I didn't have a
recollection of actually seeing it when I was
going to the meetings.

What was your impression as to whether the group believed that the information
they were giving out was true? Or did they see it as propaganda?

It never occurred to me that they thought of it just as
propaganda. I felt that they believed
sincerely in everything that they were doing. I don't quite know how to answer this
question actually because as I say it never occurred to me so
I've never really thought about it. I
certainly wouldn't have classed them as people who would have
just been maliciously trying to pull down a major
organisation. I think they genuinely believed in the
issues that they were presenting.

Did your boss give you any indication of what to expect of the people?

I'd been given the impression by the
agency that they could possibly be quite
dangerous, and if I'd given them my telephone number or
address and they found out who I was I could have been under
some threat. But in the end I found out that that wasn't at
all the case.

I certainly didn't feel threatened by them - they
seemed to be having quite a lot of fun at the
meetings - jokes passing around and that sort of thing.
And as the issues were coming up they were
discussing them - dealing with things that had to be
done. If leaflets had to be sent out to other
organisations they would be stuffing the leaflets and putting
them out. At no time did I ever feel that they
were dangerous people who were just trying to
pull down a major organisation or anything like that. I
think they genuinely believed in the issues that they were
supporting.

I'd been given the impression by the
agency that they could possibly be quite
dangerous, and if I'd given them my telephone number or
address and they found out who I was I could have been under
some threat.

How were you received by the members of the group?

I had the feeling (it may have been something to do with my
own paranoia), but I had the feeling that
they were a little bit suspicious. Because I was new, they
didn't know me, they didn't know who I was, or where I'd come
from, but I think they were quite willing to accept me.
And if I got involved in helping them stuff envelopes and
that sort of thing. We all sort of chatted together and we did actually go up to the pub a couple of times after
meetings, and we just chatted and they seemed to be quite
friendly. I could have quite got involved in what they
were doing, I think (laughs). It wasn't at all against my
beliefs.

How did you get on with Helen and Dave?

Well I didn't see an awful lot of Dave. He didn't show up very often. I can't remember exactly how many times cos it's quite
a long time ago, but I think I may have only seen him there
once or twice. Helen was there - with the exception of perhaps one meeting - just about every
meeting. She was very friendly, we used to talk quite a lot. I remember talking to her on the way to the pub once and
sitting in the pub, she was quite nice. I think we exchanged
phone numbers at one time.

Didn't that make you feel at bit strange?

In a way, yes, it did, yes. I didn't go enough times to actually start making
friends with anybody, but had I gone longer I felt that I
probably would have got quite friendly and then it would have been
very awkward. And of course I didn't use my own name.

I felt very uncomfortable doing it, I didn't like it at
all, and as soon as I heard that writs had been served and I
was no longer needed then I just got out of it as quickly as
I could.

You introduced one particular person as an investigator into the group. Could you tell us a bit about her and what
she subsequently went on to do?

Her name was Michelle Hooker and I believe she was an ex-
policewoman. I know very
little about her other than that. I met her and took her along
there and introduced her as a friend of mine, and I think
I only attended one meeting with her, after which she carried
on and got involved. She was a freelance
investigation agent. I think she was working just for
herself. There wasn't anybody else
involved. She must have been doing quite well, she used
to drive up in a black BMW - she used
to give me a lift in it. We stopped not far away
from the meeting, parked the car and then we'd walk to the
meeting and afterwards she used to give me a lift home. She
gave me her card once, but I didn't have much to do with her
after that.

Were you aware of who
was a spy and who was an activist?

I was never aware of exactly who was of the group and who was
an investigator because I now
know that there were a couple of investigators that I didn't
know and I believe there was one who didn't even work
for the same agency that I was
working for. There may well have been a least three investigators in
the room at one time, and perhaps
only a maximum of seven or eight people altogether, so that's
quite a high percentage I suppose of people attending the
meeting.

Were there rules as to how far you
could go to get information for McDonald's?

Well I can't answer that for the other investigators because
I wasn't a professional
investigator and I wasn't trained as an investigator. I'd
been personal assistant to the managing director, and all I
had was a very open sort of briefing. Just go along, attend
the meeting, notice as much as you can, write it all down
afterwards and take a special note of anything
mentioned in relation to McDonald's. Try to note down
more or less everything that's talked about, all the
different topics, but especially McDonald's, and if you
find any leaflets that relate to McDonald's then grab some,
take them. Which I did.

Were you aware of what other investigators were doing?

I wasn't aware of what kind of briefing they had - I was never
briefed together with them beforehand.
So I don't know what they were asked to do. I
didn't see them do anything different from what I was
actually doing. They were just there, they were trying to
sort of join in with the others and be natural and relate.

The court heard evidence of some of the spies breaking into the office and stealing photographs and letters and so on. Were you aware of this sort of illegal activity?

I didn't know anything about that. I've heard these stories
since. That somebody broke into the office, but I heard
that recently since I've been involved
with Helen and Dave in the last couple of years.
I wasn't aware of anything like that at the time.

They were a group of people who obviously had strong
feelings about what is happening to the
environment and generally our planet today, and they're
actually doing something about it instead of just talking and
waiting for someone else to do something about it.

Did the 'professional' spies have a more cynical attitude? Michelle Hooker, for example.

No, not that I noticed. I was quite surprised when she
came along for the first time because I
thought I had to sort of dress down and wear sandals and sort
of hippy-type clothes, you know, but she came along with
quite flashy jewellery and long tapered painted finger nails
and make up and she didn't to my mind look as though... Well I
thought that people would have suspected that she wasn't
one of them basically, but in actual fact I think she got
involved quite deeply afterwards, so they can't have been too
suspicious of her. We didn't talk about anything to do
with the case afterwards, we didn't have any social time
together, we just went straight home afterwards.

I've heard about her involvement again recently - I
didn't know at the time
because I left and I didn't have any contact with anybody, so
I just left her to carry on after my sort of pulling out. Now I've heard that she was involved in
some meetings that they had - some demonstrations maybe - she
was giving out leaflets. I think she's even been
photographed giving out leaflets - in fact I know because I
was shown a photograph of her in court and I had to identify
her. More than that I don't really know.

The irony of that is superb: someone employed by McDonald's giving out the very leaflet that they are trying to stop the distribution of.

Yes, yes. If you look at it like that, very odd I would
think (laughs). Actually I have heard a
rumour that she got involved romantically I think, with one of the members of the group. I don't know of that for sure, I just heard that.

NOTE: The court heard that Michelle Hooker did in fact have an affair with one of the activists in the group.

Did you ever ask
yourself whether it was a worthwhile thing to be doing?

No, at the time I was just doing a job and I actually
left the employ of the investigation agency
while it was still going on and I was asked if I would
continue for some time, and I agreed, and I really didn't
want to do it, but I did it because I'd said that I would.
I felt very uncomfortable doing it, I didn't like it at
all, and as soon as I heard that writs had been served and I
was no longer needed then I just got out of it as quickly as
I could.

How did you come to be a witness for the defence?

Well it was rather strange how it came out that I
was actually working as an investigator
in that case. I was in the pub talking to
one of my college friends, and we were talking about our
lives before and things that had happened and I told her
about this job that I'd done and she suddenly went "hah! I
know them!". And then we talked about all the
possibilities of what might come out of this, and then we
forgot about it - or I forgot about it - for quite some time
after that.

And then I got a phone call out of the
blue, would I be interested
in meeting Helen and Dave and just talking about what I
had done and my involvement in the investigation and so
on? And I was filled with trepidation, I didn't know what to
do. I thought about it and I thought "well why not?". I
didn't see any reason why not - little bit paranoid
again, didn't know really who they were or what they might
do, having got me in their clutches, so to speak, you know.
But I went along and we really got on quite well and we
talked about the whole thing and Helen took lots of notes
and after that they asked me if I would consider appearing as a witness for them in
the case.

And why did you decide to appear in court?

Well, by this time I'd been doing my nutritional course I'd learned an awful lot more about
environmental questions and so on. I
realise now that prior to that I was totally ignorant, as
I think a lot of people in our society are, of what's
happening to the planet and so on. And I felt - having given
it a tremendous amount of thought - that I might be able to do
something to help by doing this.

You go in there and you're playing a
role, you're trying to be very natural and talk to people and
not blow your cover.

What happened just before you were to appear as a witness?

Well it was a couple of weeks before I was due to appear in
court to give evidence, and I was at
work and I received a telephone call from my husband at work
to say `be careful' or `watch out' - something to that effect -
`you're being followed'. And he said that a man had come to
the door and he'd told him his name was Jack
Russell and that he used to work with me.
I knew something was afoot because I'd never actually met
Jack Russell at the time that I was working for the
investigation agency. He'd had a heart attack and was off
work - had been for about six months or something like
that. I heard later that he resumed part-time work there, or
something to that effect, and he didn't tell in
what capacity we were working. He just led him to believe
that he was an ex-boyfriend or something like that,
and that he was following me.

He asked
my husband what time the train I
came home from work on came in, what time I
left work, what time I went to work, questions like that.
Which was very unnerving. We were both quite worried about
what the consequences might be - what he had in his mind
to do.

Did you talk to him?

He didn't make contact with me at all. Strangely enough
that night that he came to the door and
spoke to my husband I was working unusually late, so I didn't
get home `til about ten thirty. I believe he came to the
door about the time that I normally get home from work,
between seven, seven-thirty, something like that.
I would assume, he had already been checking up on me to find
out what my movements were. Which makes it feel a little bit
strange.

Putting two and two together, who do you think he was?

It was my feeling that he was one of the
investigators who worked at the agency that I
used to work for and I felt that they didn't like
the fact that I was appearing for the defendants instead of
for the plaintiffs, basically. But I didn't know what their
intentions were in that. And he said that he just
wanted to ask me why I'd done it. I mean it sounded very
dramatic - "done it", you know. Basically he meant why was I
giving evidence for the defendants. I believe all the other
investigators who'd been brought as witnesses were appearing
for McDonald's.

What were your feelings?

I was absolutely outraged, as well as being extremely
nervous, because I didn't know what his
intentions were. As I said, I was
looking over my shoulder going to work and coming home and
taking devious routes, and looking behind me to see if anyone
was following me. I was quite unnerved for several
days after that, and so was my husband. We got no
further contact from them. I did actually hear from - I
think it was Helen who told me - that the agency that I worked
for was no longer operating. I did a little bit of
investigation work myself and looked up in the telephone
directory and found their name was still in the
directory, so I telephoned them and asked for Mr Russell, and
was told that he was in a meeting, so I'm assuming they're
still functioning under that name.

So do you feel as if you've changed sides?

In one respect I haven't
changed sides because at the time I was doing a job, and then
when I was asked to be a witness I was just standing up in
court and saying factually what happened. But looking at it
from a different perspective perhaps I have changed sides
because now I feel that I'm much more informed about
environmental issues and so on. In my nutritional course we
learn about environmental medicine - what effect
different foods have, different pollutants in the atmosphere
have in ones body, and how they contribute to degenerative
diseases (not just degenerative diseases but all kinds of
problems that people have, even mild mood swings can be
attributed to pollutants in the atmosphere and things like
that). I'm much more concerned now. So I suppose in
a way I have to say "yes I have changed sides" because I feel
I've become more informed.

What was it like in the witness box?

It was very scary. I
had to work quite hard on myself to not be very shaky and
just keep myself composed. Once I got into the witness box
and the questions were being asked then it was all right, I
was OK, I didn't feel worried any more, because I knew all I
had to do was speak the truth, so I had nothing to worry
about.

How were you treated by Mr Rampton?

He hardly asked me any questions at all. All he got me to do
was at the end - when Dave and
Helen had finished questioning me - he just stood up and asked
me to avow my statement, which I did. And he also asked me
one other question which was something to
the effect that could I confirm that my recollection of the
events that took place at the time when I was actually
getting involved in the meetings would have been better
then, so that would have been what I wrote down
in my reports, than now. And all I could do was to say "yes".

There may well have been a least three investigators in
the room at one time, and perhaps
only a maximum of seven or eight people altogether

What was Helen and Dave's cross-examination like?

I would have liked them to have been a little bit more
specific in the direction of their questions. I felt that they left it a little bit open and a couple of times asked me what my impressions were, and I felt
conscious ... I mean, I have little knowledge of the way the
court works and my feeling was that I'm sure that they
don't want to really listen to me going on about my opinions
and impressions and things, much as I would have liked to
have expounded on it. But I would have liked them to have
been more pointed and direct with their questions, but
otherwise they just took me through my statement
basically to get me to highlight certain aspects of it,
confirm certain aspects of it, rather than just saying `this
is your statement do you confirm that.'

Do you regret giving evidence for the defence now?

I have no regrets that I actually appeared as a
witness for the defendants in this
matter for Helen and Dave. I feel that in court, I wasn't really given an opportunity
to say as much as perhaps Helen and Dave would have liked me
to have done - and indeed I would have liked to have done -
about my impressions of the group, because the judge just
didn't want to hear about my opinions and my impressions and
it was very much a case of having to answer questions "yes"
and "no". But I would have liked to have
been able to say more about them, I think.

What would you have liked to have said about London Greenpeace?

That they were a group of people who obviously had strong
feelings about what is happening to the
environment and generally our planet today, and they're
actually doing something about it instead of just talking and
waiting for someone else to do something about it. And I
think that's a very good thing. Pity more people
can't do something instead of just talking about it.

What was the main reason you felt you needed to be there?

Knowing what I do about nutrition,
knowing what I now know about the way certain of the foods
are produced, I think that I had to get up and take the
stand, so to speak - couldn't really refuse.

What do you think of McDonald's now?

My attitude to McDonald's is that merely there's no way
that I would go into a McDonald's and
have any of the food that they offer because I know that it's
not gonna do me any good, personally. That's the main
reason that I wouldn't go into McDonald's and buy the food
that they offer. But also, now that I know more about the
environmental issues - I haven't gone into it deeply so I
wouldn't like to say too much about it. I wish that
I'd been able to sit in on the court case for the
whole two years and become that much more informed, because I
think a lot of important information has
probably been thrown up and put before the public.

How do you now feel about having been a spy?

As far as working for the agency at that time, I feel that
I was doing it in all innocence because I just wasn't
informed at that time. I mean I
knew who the client was, I knew who we were working for, but I
was working for the agency and I was just doing my job at the
time. So it's difficult to say. I mean, on reflection I
suppose if I knew then what I know now I would, I may well have
declined to do the job.